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Editorials Commentary |
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Alien abductions - a shamanic perspective on UFOs
(originally published in "Nature & Health" (Australia), Vol. 11, No. 1, Autumn, 1990)
by Bill Chalker
At the turn of the last century anthropologists, Spencer and Gillen, in their book, "The Northern Tribes of Central Australia" (1904), provided a classic account of an extraordinary genre. An Aborigine, Kurkutji, was set upon by two spirits, Mundadji and Munkaninji, in a cave:
'Mundadji cut him open, right down the
middle line, took out all of his insides and exchanged them for those of himself,
which he placed in the body of Kurkutji. At the same time he put a number
of sacred stones in his body. After it was all over, the
youngest spirit, Munkaninji, came up and restored him to life, told him that
he was now a medicine-man and showed him how to extract bones and other forms
of evil magic out of them. Then he took him away up into the sky and brought
him down to
earth close to his own camp, where he heard the natives mourning for him,
thinking that he was dead. For a long time he remained in a more or less dazed
condition, but gradually he recovered and the natives knew that hehad been
made into a medicine-man. When he operates the spirit Munkaninji is supposed
to be near at hand watching him, unseen of course by ordinary people. ,
This is an excellent description of the initiatory
experience of an Australian
aboriginal shaman. A.P. Elkin aptly referred to these individuals as 'aboriginal
men of high degree'.
There are numerous other accounts of this kind from the past, from more recent times and the present. One need only scan works like the classic study by Mircea Eliade "Shamanism - Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy", Carmen Blacker's "The Catalpa Bow - A study of Shamanic Practices in Japan", Michael Harner's "The Way of the Shaman", Joan Halifax's "Shamanic Voices", and Holger Kalweit's"Dreamtime & Inner Space - the World Of the Shaman".
Ritual death and resurrection, abduction
by powerful beings, ritual disembowelment, implanting of artifacts, aerial
ascents and journeys into, strange realms, alien tutelage and enlightenment,
personal enpowerment, and transformation - these and many
other phenomena are recurring elements of the extraordinary shamanic tradition.
Incredibly, these world-wide native aboriginal experiences share an impressive connection with a bizarre complex of human experiences now holding sway on the world stage. One of the best known accounts of this contemporary mirror of the shamanic tradition, appeared in 1987 in a best-selling book, that sold more than four million copies world-wide. The story behind it has now been made into a film by Australian director Philippe Mora. I am referring to Whitley Strieber's book "Communion". Its sequel, "Transformation -the Breakthrough", continues the author's story of his claimed 'elaborate personal encounter with intelligent non-human beings'. Whitley Strieber's story emerges from the perspective of the alien UFO abduction. Whatever its factual reality or physical basis, Strieber's account of his experiences is one of the most potent personal expression of the UFO abduction mystery.
Strieber describes how he was take from his upstate New York cabin, on 26 December, 1985, by unknown 'visitors'. From the nearby woods he recollected being taken up into the air and suddenly finding himself in 'a messy round room'. Strange beings were there. A needle like thing was allegedly inserted behind his right ear. A grey and scaly object with a sort of network of wires on the end was briefly inserted into his rectum. An incision was made on his right forefinger. He had no further conscious recollections beyond that point.
The memory of what he thought happened came back to him over the next few days. The impact was shattering. He thought he was losing his mind. He even contemplated suicide. Instea he was helped by a UFO researcher, Budd Hopkins, who arranged for him to see a psychiatrist, Dr Donald Klein.
Dr Klein's hypnosis sessions provided further details of the 26 December, 1985 episode, and earlier experiences. As Strieber searched further into his past, he uncovered not explanations and certainty, but instead found more mysteries. He concluded: 'I had a relationship with them, despite the fact that I could not even be sure they existed.'
By the time the December 1985 experience overwhelmed him, Strieber may have had these sorts of encounters at least a dozen times. He embarked on an intellectual journey through the vast UFO and related literature, trying to grapple with the mystery that had enveloped him. Strieber also describes how the 'visitors' were being witnessed by others around him. Quite a number of people who have stayed at his New York cabin have allegedly borne witness to the 'visitors'. Is this baseless contagion or evidence of the paradoxical reality of the 'visitors', as seen by Whitley Strieber? As a highly successful novelist, Strieber has had to face suggestions that "Communion" and "Transformation" are works of clever fiction. He insists it is all true. Having met him and spoken at length with him on a number of occasions, I feel it is clear he is trying to convey the 'impossible' as best as he can.
Whitley Strieber feels that the 'visitors' represent 'the most powerful of all forces acting on human culture. They may be extraterrestrials managing the evolution of the human mind. Or they may represent the presence of mind on another level of being. Perhaps our fate is eventually to leave the physical world altogether and join them in that strange hyper-reality from which they seem to emerge.
Further, he wondered 'if the shamanic language of symbol and myth would offer a better insight into the visitors' motives'? In Transformation, Strieber contemplates, 'Like the shamanic aspirants of old, I would be forced to confront death.' A friend of Strieber's, Dora Ruffner, felt 'the visitor experience was initiatory in nature - a journey into the underworld'. In an interview for Terror Australis magazine, Strieber stated 'that shamanism is the shattered remnants of mankind's early attempts to control this (visitor) phenomenon'.
Current mainstream American ufology's view of 'alien abductions' can be best expressed in the position of researcher Budd Hopkins,author of the controversial book, Intruders and the earlier work Missing Time. The 'alien abductors', in his view, are extraterrestrial and are involved in some sort of extraordinary genetic experiment. Human beings are first abducted when children. A cell sampling operationoccurs. These led to certain individuals being followed closely. After puberty ova and sperm cells are taken from them during follow-up abductions. The goal of this activity is 'the merging of human and "alien" genetic material for the production of a hybrid race'. The hybrids are then apparently brought to term in laboratory 'nurseries' inside large UFOs. The involuntary contributors are later abducted yet again, and are shown the results - tiny hybrid infants or children. These bizarre 'baby presentation' events apparently involve the abductees being asked to pick and hold their 'offspring' in a kind of binding experience!
In the book Phenomenon (1988) edited by Hilary Evans and John Spencer, Hopkins concedes: '1 am the first to admit the sheer outrageousness of such ideas, but outrageousness doesn't mean untruth. I find the evidence, unfortunately, compelling. I have every reason to conclude that these "impossible" breeding experiments are actually taking place. ..I am convinced that, for good or ill, these genetic procedures are at the heart of the UFO abduction phenomenon.
Hopkins is credited with bringing abductions into the central focus of UFO study and research in the 1980s. Whether this is a good move, is a matter of debate amongst many UFO researchers. Not all accept that the abduction claims are the key to the UFO mystery. Many see the abduction stories as an inevitable outgrowth of a psychological response to the ostensibly more objective manifestations of mainstream UFO 'reality' . Many researchers would argue it is the richness of the human mind and dynamic interplay with UFO researchers that is spawning these accounts, not aliens. However, the UFO abduction mystery is not simply an artifact of a few investigators. It is world-wide in its dimensions. English researcher Jenny Randles' book Abduction (1988) carries details from over 200 'abduction' reports from some 35 countries, as diverse as Zimbabwe, Finland, China, USSR, Tibet and India.
Indeed reports are occurring in Australia. I have investigated a number of these cases myself. Just recently, researchers from South Australia (UFO Research Australia) have been investigating a case that even features the bizarre 'baby presentation' element, present also in cases investigated by Budd Hopkins in the United States. The reporting witness was allegedly unfamiliar with Hopkins' work.
Some critics argue that sufficient explanations for the UFO abduction mystery are already available in the psychological domain. Answers may yet emerge in work being done with such esoteric fields as temporal lobe sensitivities, fantasy-prone personalities and a host of other avenues. There is yet another interpretation of UFO abduction accounts, that indeed appears to strengthen the shamanic perspective of the abduction narratives. I refer here to the imaginal interpretation. Note that I wrote imaginal, not imaginary. There is a big difference if you believe the proponents of the idea.
When Dr Kenneth Ring of the Department of Psychology, at the University of Connecticut, and author of the near-death experience studies, Life at Death and Heading Toward Omega, described his theory of imaginal UFO abductions in the MUFON UFO Journal in May, 1989, I must confess his ideas struck a responsive chord with speculations I had been toying with for more than a decade. It was only early this year that I embraced the works of the great French Islamic scholar, Henry Corbin. In a paper first published in 1964 and entitled 'Mundus Imaginalis or the Imaginary and the Imaginal', Corbin coined the term 'imaginal' to account for the Islamic mystical notion of a hidden realm ('a third kingdom' -the Alam Al -mifual as contained in the Sufism of the Islamic mystic Ibn' Arabi).
It can be accessed in certain altered states of consciousness -for example, via 'mythical consciousness' (to use James Hillman's archetypal psychology term) or 'shamanic states of consciousness' (to use modem shamanic exponent Dr Michael Harner's terminology).
The critical point that Kenneth Ring dwelt upon was that the imaginal realm was as real as everyday reality, but normally separate and invisible to us. It has form, dimension, and, he contends, 'most important for us, persons' . In this Islamic 'imaginal' realm of AIam AI -mithal, there are claimed to be quite a number of bizarre denizens, some having characteristics that bear an extraordinary likeness to the entities that dominate UFO abduction stories. One species, the Jinn, was fingered in 1983 by veteran English UFO writer Gordon Creighton, in a fascinating piece, in The Flying Saucer Review, modestly entitled ' A brief account of the true nature of the "UFO entities".
Ring highlights shamanism as one of the most potent expressions of the imaginal realm. He states: 'The shaman is the prototypic "otherworld traveller", a man (or woman) who is at home in both worlds, recognises the reality of each, and can easily journey between them.'
Richard Noll succinctly states the critical issue in his essay, 'The Presence of Spirits in Magic and Madness' (in Shirley Nicholson's compilation, Shamanism): 'Humankind has traditionally consulted extra-mundane entities for expanded knowledge and empowerment, for they are traditionally considered "sources of wisdom" that are transpersonal and able to convey crucial information beyond the normal constraints of space and time ...The practitioner usually initiates dialogues with spiritual entities by first inducing an altered state of consciousness, which allows these "invisible guests" to be seen and heard. However, in some instances it is they who knock first on the doors of imaginal perception. Called or not called, they offer symbolic potential for transformation, whether for oneself, for others, or for desired changes in the physical environment. ..' These beings are not imaginary in the sense of being not real, pure fantasy, or artificially made up. They are imaginal, existing in a realm of experience in which they inhabit a reality of their own, a mundus imaginalis or "imaginal world", as Henry Corbin deems it, which is co-existent with the mundane experiential world of our ordinary state of waking consciousness. Imaginal beings are part of our experienced reality and have probably been so since the birth of human consciousness.
While the concept of an imaginal realm
sits very well with the paradoxical reality of the UFO abduction mystery it
is, however, just as unprovable as the extraterrestrial hypothesis. Some proponents
of the imaginal view argue that confirmation comes through experience. It
is difficult to see how the idea can be substantiated. Dr Ring's suggestion,
that his theory can be easily disproved by the arrival and open contact of
extraterrestrial abductors with us, is unsatisfactory. He is using one unsubstantiated
theory to act as a mechanism to disprove another! Indeed he states it is high
time that we jettisoned 'our out-worn cartesian habits of thought' and approach
'these phenomena from an imaginal/folkloric perspective. This
will necessarily take us down a psychological road that will lead not only
into folkloric territory but into the realm of myth itself.' That approach,
while fascinating, asks us to abandon the scientific ethic. I think it would
be premature to do that. A dual approach would be more
worthwhile. It may yet confirm we are dealing with extraterrestrials or imaginal
entities. Indeed, it may even reveal yet another hitherto unfathomed explanation
for this extraordinary phenomenon. An open mind would be our best council
at this time.
Back in 1977, in a paper presented at
an Australian UFO conference, I stated that while, at least then, we appeared
to lack contemporary cases which demonstratively show, among other things,
the elements of abduction, 'contact' , and 'time lapse' , Australia, unbeknown
to most researchers, enjoyed a rich indigenous tradition of similar accounts.
Here I refer primarily to the tribal initiation accounts of aboriginal medicine
men - men of 'high degree' as A.P. Elkin aptly puts it. These aboriginal shamans
have a powerful and consistent tradition of ritualistic initiation, the elements
of which bear amazing similarities to many modern-day UFO abduction and contact
accounts.
A comparison of the two types of experiences is revealing:
Folklorist, Dr T.E. Bullard, lists the following elements of UFO abduction narratives:
• capture
• examination (which includes tales of specimen taking, reproductive examinations, implanting of small artifacts inside the abductees, and removal organs)
• conference (the witness talks with abductors)
• tour
• otherworldly journeys
• theophany (the witness has a religlous experience or receives a message from a divine being)
• return
Michael Harner, Holger Kalweit and others list the following recurring elements of shamanic experiences:
•
selection or capture
• initiation experiences (which include accounts of implanting artifacts, removal of organs, etc)
• 'magical flights' including, 'celestial ascents' to strange realms dialogues with mythic personages or spirits
• return
Consider the following. Disembowelment
is certainly one aspect you would not expect to find in contemporary UFO abduction
accounts but, astonishingly enough, such features do occasionally appear.
In the bizarre Apache Junction, Arizona, case
of 1971, the subject underwent a frightening examination in which he felt
his chest opened and that his heart briefly left his body. Sandy Larson, another
abductee, reported that her abductors even removed her brain from her skull!
Such experiences, on whatever level of reality or unreality they occur, are
common fare in shamanic accounts.
Both classes of experiences talk about placement of artifacts within the body. In shamanism it is crystals and the like. With UFO abductions it is 'implants'. Celestial ascents are common to both genres. Even the descents into 'other realms' -the underworld or under the sea -that occur in shaman stories, occur occasionally in UFO abduction stories too. In the bizarre Filiberto Cardenas abduction story, Cardenas spoke of being taken by three human-like entities to a beach where the aliens apparently worked a combination lock on a rock. The rock opened, revealing a tunnel, 'and they rushed down into the sea at a "great velocity" '. Even the extraordinary Andreasson affair, the subject of two books by UFO researcher Raymond Fowler, featured a journey down a tunnel into a strange subterranean realm. Animals often feature in both experiences. In the case of shamanism, they take the form of 'power animals' or 'spirit allies'. Jean Achterberg, in Nicholson's shamanism compilation, states: 'Deer are widely associated with shamanic work. In Siberia real life reindeer shared the fly-agaric journeys with the shaman. ..The deer spirit is believed to leave the sacred peyote buttons as tracks to guide the shamans on their supernatural course. ..Even in prehistoric times, the deer had healing significance, based on man/ deer shaman art forms that have been found on caves and artifacts.' Harner describes how the shaman utilises deer, birds, fish, wolves, bears, and other animals.
In UFO abduction accounts, the presence
of animals is rationalised as 'screen memories' of aliens. In his book Missing
Time Budd Hopkins describes Virginia Horton's magical encounter in a French
wood with a talking deer! In Whitley
Strieber's books, owls and wolves are often referred to. He also refers to
the experience of Barry Maddock who had 'the bizarre impression that an enor
mous gray owl with big, black eyes' was in a room with him. It took Maddock
into 'a large vaulted chamber that reminded him of the Sydney Opera House.
There it turned into a bird of paradise.' And again, in the Andreasson affair,
Betty Andreasson encountered the Phoenix bird during one of her abduction
experiences.
Nevill Drury has explored the links between shamanism and contemporary Western occultism. In his book Vision Quest Nevill gives a fascinating account of his introduction to shamanic tutelage under Dr Michael Harner, at the Transpersonal conference in Victoria, during November, 1980. His shamanic journey was complete with tunnel imagery, a palace of crystal, Phoenix imagery, having a crystal placed in his chest, and seeing saint-like figures rimming the tunnel he journeyed through. To him, 'the shaman's journey, in a very real and personal way, is a pathway to sacred space ...-our inner being. Note, however, in the Andreasson affair, an 'other worldly journey' told from the perspective of a UFO abduction narrative, also featured tunnel imagery, a large crystalline structure, a 'vision' of the Phoenix, and encountering saint-like figures. She also told of having an 'implant' being placed inside her, behind the eyes. The correspondences are fascinating! The Andreasson books appeared in 1979 and 1982. Nevill Drury's initial shamanic journey occurred in 1980. He had no awareness of the Andreasson books.
The sexual/reproductive element also appears
in both shaman and UFO abduction narratives. In shaman accounts we even have
stories of 'spirit weddings' and 'spirit children' off-spring -the results
of liaisons between shamans and the 'spirits'. Holger
Kalweit gives a fascinating account of such a situation in his book Dreamtime
and Inner Space. The shamaness 'gave birth to a child by (a spirit) in the
spirit world, and he would bring it to her at night for her to breastfeed
it. He came when everyone was asleep. The people
in the village heard the child cry, but her own family slept as if they were
dead.' It is fascinating to compare that sort of story with the accounts Budd
Hopkins describes in his book Intruders - tales of ova sampling, baby presentation
and baby bonding!
And finally, there appears to be a growing
correspondence in UFO abduction accounts, with one of the primary goals of
shamanism - healing. In Gary Doore's compilation, Shaman's Path - Healing,
Personal Growth and Empowerment, Stanley
Krippner writes, 'Shamans were the world's first healers, first diagnosticians,
first psychotherapists, etc.' 'There are shamanic healing methods that closely
parallel contemporary behaviour therapy, chemotherapy, dream interpretation,
family therapy,
hypnotherapy, milieu therapy, and psychodrama. It
is clear that shamans, psychotherapists, and physicians have more in common
than is generally suspected. For the shaman, however, the spiritual dimension
of healing is extremely important, whereas contemporary physicians and psychotherapists
typically ignore it. Several therapies have emerged with shamanic perspectives,
including Stanislav Grof's 'Holotropic Therapy' and Michael Harner's "shamanic
Counselling".
In the classic watershed UFO abduction case, that of Betty and Barney Hill, as told in the 1966 best selling book, The Interrupted Journey, Dr Benjamin Simon, a Boston psychiatrist, investigating the cause of stress related problems experienced by the couple, used hypnotherapy to explore the UFO abduction story and arrive at a therapeutic outcome. The complex abduction story that emerged under hypnosis had a positive psychological and cathartic effect on the couple. The psychotherapeutic benefits of confronting the abduction story were obvious.
The growing number of health professionals who are starting to examine the UFO abduction mystery are contributing to a therapeutic enrichment of the witness's interaction with researchers. For example, Dr Rima Laibow, a New York psychiatrist, has been working with Budd Hopkins. More than half of the abductees she has worked with are what she refers to as 'dual victims'. They have reported not only UFO abduction experiences but also child abuse. Some researchers suggest that this aspect explains the origin of the abduction tales, i.e., the abduction story is a 'screen memory' for child abuse. Dr Laibow rejects this hypothesis, pointing out the consistency of the accounts, the physical evidence in many cases, the emergence of many of the abduction narratives under hypnosis ('an uncommon mode of presentation for screen memories') and the presence of similar abduction scenarios in the unabused. Further still, she found in a number of cases, 'following the abreaction of the abduction, therapeutic work may occur spontaneously about material which was not abreacted: the early physical and/or sexual abuse'. Elaboration of the abduction material often leads to a reassessment of memories of abuse and a positive reintegration of the individual. Physiological symptoms are occasionally overcome leading to a positive therapeutic outcome. Dr Laibow concluded in a recent paper in the International UFO Reporter that "the need for additional study, deeply intermeshed with, not separate from, the active therapy of those who have this set of realities in their lives, is a matter of urgent public health concern (whatever we now feel the locus of the reality to be)."
Budd Hopkins remarks in Intruders that the long-term effect of these complex abduction experiences is psychological. He states: "Though some of the resulting behaviour may be similar, UFO abductees are not like people who've had a single traumatic experience, such as the victims of automobile accidents or brutal muggings. They are people who have been, at intervals over the years, involuntarily subjected to a frightening and invasive "secret life" .... The emotions this secret life engenders can include fear, dread, helplessness, profound maternal confusion and loss, the sense of physical - even sexual - vulnerability, and a thousand other things, ranging all the way up to basic uncertainty as to where one really belongs, where home really is. And all along this road lies a terrible sense of self doubt, a questioning of one's very sanity." Budd Hopkins is now working on a book on how people are coping with these experiences and how they have affected their lives. Tentatively entitled, Impact: The Effect of UFO Experiences on Everyday Life, it will be much more therapeutically oriented and will include input from the many mental health professionals who have worked with him (this book did not appear - B.C.).
Very few of the people who have allegedly experienced an abduction seek out publicity. Indeed most are terrified of it. They are more like the victims of assault than starry eyed seekers of a new world reality. They seemed to be all haunted by their experiences and most are seeking answers. Instead they are confronted by shallow, ridiculing media reporting, and a general public that has no awareness of the controversy. The inevitable response from a position of ignorance is to either ridicule or reject - 'They must all be nuts'. Given the extent of the problem, this is a very unwise approach. Something is happening. It may yet turn out to be a quantum leap in the field of anomalistic psychology. Full understanding of the UFO abduction and shaman experiences may also provide a quantum leap in understanding in another direction. I have mentioned how Whitley Strieber viewed shamanism as 'the shattered remnants of mankind's early attempts to control this (visitor) phenomenon'. Could it be that the reverse might be more accurate? In shamanism we see individuals who seem to have a strong measure of control over the set of realities they operate in. In UFO abduction experiences we appear to have generally helpless victims who have no control over the bizarre 'reality' that overwhelms them. We appear to have the two opposite ends of a control continuum. Perhaps we, as a culture, have lost an ability that other cultures and generations may have had to some extent? Individuals like Whitley Strieber may be signalling that there are 'rites of passage' before we can achieve some level of understanding and control over the UFO abduction experience. We may yet progress along the continuum.
Alien abductions may yet prove to be remarkable testimony to the eccentricities of man - that is, these experiences may spring from the realm of the hoaxer, the deluded and the alienated of our society. And yet the possibility that it may just be about something truly extraordinary demands we keep an open mind and keep the matter properly in question, until we have enough information to properly determine what is going on. Fortunately the number of intelligent and qualified people now looking into the UFO abduction mystery is growing.
The victims of these experiences must not be unrealistically encouraged by advocates of alien presence, nor, at the other extreme, should they be ridiculed by the sceptical among us. They should be helped to confront the reality of their experiences, whether or not it is eventually found to be prosaic, profound, or extraordinary. Only time will tell whether the search for answers will give us more insights into the human mind or into the UFO phenomenon. Could it be that it will do both?
A note to readers:
I would like to hear from people who feel they may have had this sort of experience, and also from qualified professionals in the mental health field (psychologists, psychiatrists, etc) and other disciplines, who feel they may have something positive to contribute, in an open minded, serious investigation of these accounts. The well being and best interests of the witnesses are paramount in these investigations. Confidentiality will be respected.
I can be contacted at P.O. Box 42, West Pennant Hills, NSW,2125. Bill Chalker or fill out the form on the [Feedback] page.